The present invention relates to a portable cellular phone which enables desirable setting of a melody or musical scale of a ringing tone (a tone that announces an incoming call) or a signaling tone(a tone that precedes a recorded announcement), and more particularly, to simple setting of the melody or musical scale.
A conventional portable cellular phone enables the user to compose an original ringing tone by entering a melody by means of a dial button. One type of such a portable cellular phone is described in the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 9-149098.
As shown in FIG. 7, the portable cellular phone comprises an input device 702, by way of which the user performs entry operations; a CPU 701 which converts an input signal to a musical scale; RAM 704 which holds the thus-converted note; ROM 703 in which is stored a program for defining operations of the CPU 701; an interface 706 for outputting the data held in the RAM 704 to an external device; and a ringing tone generator 705 which emits a ringing tone.
In the operation of this portable cellular phone, when the user presses a key provided on the input device 702, the CPU 701 converts a signal entered by way of the key into a corresponding scale code. The thus-converted scale code is written into the RAM 704. The interface 706 reads the scale code from the RAM 704 and imparts the thus-read scale code to the ringing tone generator 705, where a melody is produced according to the scale code when the cellular phone receives an incoming call.
Thus, even the conventional portable cellular phone enables the user to set his favorite melody as a ringing tone.
In the conventional cellular phone, the melody must be entered, in the form of notes of a musical scale, through key operations. Hence, if the user does not have any knowledge about the musical scale, he experiences difficulty in entering a desired melody correctly. As a result, the user must repeatedly perform key-entry operations several times until a desired melody is composed.